Archaeology Displays Update

Museum staff arranging metal objects ©Pitt Rivers Museum

The new archaeology displays in the Pitt Rivers Museum will be displayed by type of material, rather than by chronology or geography.  The objects for these displays have been selected and now the time has come to layout all the objects to determine their final positions in the cases.  Prof Dan Hicks was involved with the final selection, Technicians Alistair and Adrian advised regarding the placement of objects in the cases and Conservator Miriam recommended ways to support and protect the objects.

The run of 10 archaeological cases is 17 metres in length and so it is important to see the potential layout of the cases next to each other.  The team spent three days working through the the displays which will show archaeological objects made of stone, metal, bone, glass, ceramic, wood and textile.

This case contains examples of spindle whorls © Pitt Rivers Museum

We started with the stone case.  The PRM has over 10,000 archaeological objects; most of these are stone tools so we had a lot to choose from. The carved stone piece in the centre of the photograph is a fragment of limestone (1884.138.12) excavated by Lt. Gen. Pitt-Rivers himself from Caesar’s Camp near Folkstone.

A close up of objects made of wood © Pitt Rivers Museum

Organic material is less likely to survive in the archaeological record but the museum holds some interesting examples to display in the case.  This case contains an intriguing wooden mummy face (1890.25.3) from Ancient Egypt 3rd Intermediate period excavated by Flinders Petrie and a mystery wooden object, possibly a lock, from a bog in Aghabullogue, Ireland (1884.117.1).

A close up of textiles © Pitt Rivers Museum

Archaeological textiles pose a problem for the museum conservation team.  These textiles are fragile and vulnerable to UV light, high lux light levels and to museum pests.  The conservation and technical services departments are investigating methods to control light levels and protect the textiles on display.

A close up of objects made from bone © Pitt Rivers Museum

The bone case contains examples of bone, tooth, shell and horn.  This case contains many small objects.  During the layout we took the opportunity to test the case text.  We printed mock up labels and tried placing the labels along the side edges of the cases.

The Archaeology Stone case in situ © Pitt Rivers Museum

The first display was installed on the Upper Gallery in October 2016.  Keep an eye out for more appearing soon!

Madeleine Ding and Sian Mundell
VERVE Curatorial Assistants

Noh to Noah: Highlights from the new Woodworking display

If you've visited the Museum this year and made it up to the first floor (Lower Gallery), you might have seen our new display of Woodworking, part of Phase 2 of VERVE's redisplay plan. Here we take a closer look at some of the objects featured in the display.

Selecting objects wasn't easy. There are literally thousands of objects in the Museum's collections made of wood. We decided that the case would follow themes established in the previous Metalwork display comprising tools, raw materials and finished products to showcase some of the shaping and decorating techniques associated with wood from across the world.

We eventually whittled a long list of 650+ objects down to 190. Using a large table we created a 'mock-up' outlining how the material might be arranged (and to ascertain that it would all fit!)

Woodwork layout © Pitt Rivers Museum

The main sections are concerned with carpentry (including joinery), carving, natural form, pyroengraving, fretwork, and veneer/marquetry.

You can see on the centre-right we've left a space called 'NOH'. This was for the inclusion of three new Noh masks from Japan, specially commissioned by the project from a master craftsman in Tokyo. Hideta Kitazawa's series and notes documented the process of making such a mask, from the selection of 300-year-old Hinoki (Japanese Cypress) wood, to the use of hammers and chisels, urushi lacquer and 30 coats of white oyster-shell paint. The finished mask is a ko-omote mask, depicting a beautiful teenage girl.

Hideta Kitazawa making a ko-omote Noh mask for the Museum's displays © Pitt Rivers Museum

This video shows Hideta demonstrating Noh mask carving in Australia in 2015:

Another highlight in the display is a fantastic Noah's ark, known to date to before 1860. Originally thought to have been made in Worcester, comparison with other existing examples indicated that it was more likely made in the town of Seiffen in the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) region of eastern Germany. Seiffen has been renowned for its wooden toy industry since the 18th century, and more than half the town's population is still employed in the woodworking trade.

Noah's Ark, Grühainichen, Germany, 19th century PRM 1956.9.70

We included this object to illustrate two separate processes - straw marquetry and tyre-turning. The sides of the ark have been painstakingly covered with glued strips of straw, which have been soaked in water for different lengths of time to produce varying shades of gold and brown. Its 255 animals and birds have been produced using an ingenious method called Reifendrehen ('tyre turning') which enabled the cheap and efficient production of lots of wooden animals. A large disc of fir wood is put on a lathe to create a tyre-like 'Seiffen ring' of 30-50cm diameter,  the cross-section of which takes the form of the desired animal. Small slices are taken from the ring, which are finished and painted by hand. Many of the makers had never seen exotic animals and so used their imaginations to create green hyenas and red camels. We've deliberately placed this object low down in the case so that children can see it.

Choosing a selection from the 255 toy animals to display with the ark © Pitt Rivers Museum

This unicorn was not part of a pair. Might it not have made it on to ark, thus explaining its 'extinction'?!

From a series entitled Reifendreher by Johannes Geyer, 2014. Reproduced under the CC BY-NC 4.0 licence

Another example in the 'Marquetry and Inlay' section is this beautiful Qur’an stand from Iran that folds out to an 'X' shape. Folding lecterns, or rahla, are among the oldest and most valuable furnishings in a mosque. Designed to support a large Qur’an, the Muslim holy book, early rahla were often made of luxury woods such as walnut or teak, and decorated with sumptuous inlay or openwork carving. This example is inlaid with wood and gold stars in a geometric pattern.

Qur'an stand, Iran. PRM 1965.12.46 A © Pitt Rivers Museum

My other favourite object in this case is neither beautiful nor remarkable, but it has a vernacular and rustic charm that is hard to resist. It is a large disc, around 33cm in diameter, carved with concentric circles of Icelandic script. It is a bread stamp, the inscription carved back-to-front so that it would appear the right way around when stamped into the bread dough prior to baking.

Bread stamp, Iceland. PRM 1900.13.2 © Pitt Rivers Museum
Original view (left) and reversed (right) to enable the inscription to be read 

One of the huge advantages of being part of Oxford University is that it is home to experts in many academic fields. We were thankful to Dr Carolyne Larrington from the Faculty of English, who teaches Icelandic, for her translation of the inscription, which turned out to be a prayer:
FRÓNI ÁRTAL 1876 JD; BLESSI HERRAN ÞETTA VORT Á BORÐI BRAUÐ; SJER HVER MAÐUR ROMI, SÁR AÐ GRENNIST SULTAR NAUÐ

“Iceland, year 1876 JD; May the Lord bless this bread on our table in order to diminish the sore pain of hunger; this every single man should say.”

As you can see, there is a lot of variety in this display. I hope that next time you visit, you have time to head to the Lower Gallery to have a look at these intriguing objects in the flesh.


Helen Adams
Project Curator & Engagement Officer